


Butterfly Kiss!

by Flurrin



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slow Burn, Wingfic, some body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-06-23 11:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19700815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flurrin/pseuds/Flurrin
Summary: Consumed with her training to be a nurse in Castle Town, Luda has almost forgotten about her childhood penpal, Hyrule’s resident bug princess. But one night a knock sounds on her apartment door, and Agitha confesses two horrible secrets: She’s the daughter of the Great Fairy, and she needs Luda's help.





	1. Teatime with Agitha

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of rarepairs for Twilight Princess and I'd like to see more content for them so I decided to make it. This pairing in particular sparked a long-running plot. I see about ten chapters in the future for this story, I hope you all stick around for them. Thank you for reading, please comment, even if it's just a single word!

The click of a door unlocking echoed in the dark, and then the apartment door opened, casting a single strip of light on the crooked wood floors. Luda stumbled in, releasing her heavy bag of reference books as she pushed the door shut. She had an actual bed in the one-room affair, but she only made it as far as the shabby couch before falling face down, moccasins still hanging off her toes.

She slept for hours. Studying under Hyrule's top physician was not fun or easy work. Luda was beginning to despair that dissecting so many dead animals would never help her with real patients. It was disheartening. (Sometimes literally, as the heart of a large goat had been sitting on her desk for much of the school day.)

The roar of rain outside her single, curtain-staunched window finally roused her again. Thunder rocked gently as she stood, lit a fire in the round clay alcove that chimneyed through the ceiling of her corner kitchen, and set to making herself tea.

The firelight did not flatter her living situation. It was little more than four walls, with the bed buried in piles of rumpled clothing, the kitchen littered with her very few dishes, and the tea table in front of the couch a mess of both unfinished homework and unsent letters. Of those, most were the same: crumpled and crossed out, addressed to her father in Kakariko, and consisting of various ways to say one thing.

_ “I want to come home.” _

Luda had been living in Castle Town almost two full years. Her school provided the housing, at a cost, and though it was little more than a roof over her head, she’d grown used to every crack in the floorboards, every bug that had made its home in the dark corners, every neighbor’s voice that filtered in through the walls (all from fellow students, none friendly enough to know well). It was not home. Home had never made her feel like a stranger to herself.

She could decorate the apartment however she liked. Her mother’s dreamcatcher with the story of her family twined in, her father’s blanket draped over the couch, the smell of ground herbs and burning incense. None of it could make her feel like she belonged.

The kettle hissed, and Luda pulled it from the flame.

Someone knocked on the door.

Luda held still for a moment, the kettle swaying on its wooden handle. She didn't  _ get  _ visitors. Surely someone had the wrong address. But they knocked again regardless, so she called out “just a moment!” and set the teapot down before answering.

She saw first a badly stained lace parasol. It had clearly offered no aid against the rain outside to the hunched figure beneath it, who was dripping wet from pigtails to petticoats. Luda would not have recognized the girl, tall and strange as she had become, except that when she raised her rain-and-tear-stained face, Luda saw tattoos, three dots under each eye, that had been there since they were both little girls meeting in a summer garden long ago.

“Agitha,” she gasped, immediately pulling the door wider.

The parasol wobbled in one of the insect princess's cold shaking hands as the other gripped her muddy dress. More tears drew trails down her tattooed cheeks as she spoke, the first words Luda had heard aloud from her in over six years. “You're the only one I can trust. Please, Luda. I need help.”

*

Luda had never expected to see Agitha again. They had met once, both twelve years old at the time, and it had been enough to change Luda's life. Everything about Agitha, from her clothes to her unusual passions, her maturity and her independence, and even her painted beauty made poor village girl Luda admire her: a self-proclaimed princess, living alone in a bustling city and devoting her days to whatever she pleased.

Luda had been chasing a beautiful butterfly when the other girl appeared, a beautiful butterfly herself, decorative cloth wings and all, lace parasol balanced elegantly against one shoulder.

They caught the bug together, gentle as lambs with its tiny, delicate, multicolored body. Its wings fluttered against Luda's cheek and she giggled at the sensation.   
"Oh! Aww!" The girl exclaimed, jealous. "He kissed you! He must like you very much."

"Does he?" Luda let the insect crawl across her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Butterfly. I'm Luda."

"Luda, like a ladybug?" The girl said delightedly. "My name is Agitha. Where are you from, li'l ladybug?" Agitha asked. "Do you like insects, too? We should be friends."

Luda fell back on formal introductions shyly. "I am from Kakariko. My father is in the marketplace, trading."

"Well, the sun is going down. Would you like to have tea at my castle?"

Luda looked at the Hylian girl. Though they were the same age, Agitha carried herself differently, not like a child but rather like a noble, her hands folded daintily in front of her.

"...Only if my father may come too," Luda said, cautious.

Renado had managed to sell most of his tanned leather goods and hand-woven blankets in exchange for things they'd been in sore need of since Kakariko had begun its rebuilding. He met his daughter in the market street and agreed to the impromptu tea party, shocked to learn Agitha did indeed live alone in a well-furnished and friendly-insect-populated town home in Hyrule.

“Where are your parents?” Renado asked, bewildered by the dusk light glittering through the stained glass into the room, which itself looked like an indoor garden, as he sat at a velvet-clothed table and held a delicate and extremely ostentatious teacup in one hand.

“It’s a secret to everybody,” Agitha said with a little wink. The butterfly had been transferred to her hand and she admired it on the end of her fingers idly.

“My mother died,” Luda piped up. Renado winced beside her and she sobered. “She got sick.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Agitha said. “My mother isn’t sick. But she had to go far away.”

“And...your father?” Renado asked, uncomfortable.

Agitha gave him a smile and a shrug, her puffed sleeves rising to her pointed eartips.

This exchanged defined the tone for the rest of their visit, with Agitha’s carefree hospitality, Renado’s stiff, uncomprehending concern, and Luda squirming in her chair, wishing this tea party felt more like a playdate. The girls discussed their favorite bugs, a topic that was quickly growing from a mild interest to a full-blown obsession for Luda the more the little princess told her.

But more than that, another interest was growing. That night, they said goodbye to Agitha, who refused all of Renado’s offers of assistance. She was living on her own in Hyrule, and that was the way it had to be, she claimed, but she had her friends nearby to take care of her. This relieved the man somewhat, though Luda quietly knew she just meant the insects she had filled her home with. And Luda wanted that. To fill a home filled with things she loved, to live life free and follow her own unusual passions. She wanted to leave Kakariko.

A letter arrived a few weeks later from Agitha’s ‘Castle’, and it was the beginning of a long correspondence. The girls wrote to each other often as they grew up and their lives changed. They sent each other  dried flowers and  cricket wings and Luda made mention of her interest in medicine, and Agitha wrote about the bustle of Hyrule Castle Town and festivals held in the marketplace; about a life that seemed to move so much faster in comparison to the quiet village.  


At sixteen, Luda was accepted into an apprenticeship. She wrote frantically.  _ “Dear Aggie, I’m coming to Hyrule, I’m moving into an apartment above an old doctor’s office that has been converted into a school for people like me, we’ll be neighbors soon!” _

The letter back was unexpected, and late, only coming a week before Luda was set to move.

_ “Dear Luda, we cannot be neighbors, for I am leaving Hyrule to find my mother.” _

Luda sat in her room, clothes packed tightly into a single duffel, childish things set neatly away, and the letter cold and fragile in her hands, incomprehensible.

But she went. She went to Hyrule alone and enrolled into the medical program along with twelve other students she didn’t know, always hoping to catch a glimpse of Agitha in the square every time she went shopping for her little one-room apartment, passing the ‘castle’ that had once seemed so glorious and was now overgrown, the tree housed within bursting out through broken glass windows, moss creeping over the stuck door. The letters came further and further apart in time, and finally stopped altogether, but Luda was too busy with school to write anyway, so she couldn’t fault Aggie for the same transgression.

Agitha had been gone for two years. Luda’s grades were beginning to slip behind the other students. She’d developed an unhealthy eating schedule out of exhaustion, purchasing single-serving, often unhealthy edibles from the market when she could muster the energy to get out of her dorm after class. She connected with no one, her studies and her own self-sustainment keeping her too busy to socialize. She hadn’t thought about her penpal in months, despite half of the unsent letters cluttering her apartment being addressed to the bug princess herself.

And now she was back.

The tea set rattled in Luda’s hands as she carried it to the little table in front of the broken-down couch. Her friend was here, emerged from the rain like a ghost, trying to smooth the wrinkles from her damp, muddy petticoats.

“You cut your hair,” Agitha noticed, her voice still hitching with the occasional whimper.

Luda blushed, putting the tray down, one hand flying to her black, close-cropped fuzz that hugged her scalp. “Yes, it kept getting in the way.”

Agitha sniffled. “It looks nice.” She pulled a lacy handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes, then blew her nose, then collected herself somewhat. “I’m sorry to intrude like this. I just couldn’t bear it anymore. It’s a terrible secret.”

“A secret?” Luda asked, pushing a mismatched teacup towards her guest. Her mind buzzed through the years of letters they’d exchanged, wondering if Agitha had ever referenced such a thing in them.

“It’s not what you think. I couldn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know who I could trust. But you’ll be able to help me, I know you will.”

“Of course!” Luda’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. “But you have to tell me what it is.”

Agitha’s mouth turned up in a smile that didn’t quite reach her watering eyes. “You look just like your dad, you know.”

Luda gave a wry smile, looking away. “I guess the one time you met him, he was pretty worried about you, too.”

The Hylian girl accepted the proffered tea and blew on it once before setting it back down, no apparent appetite. “That was so long ago. Before any of this started happening.” Agitha buried her face in her handkerchief for a moment, squeaking a confession into the fabric, her words muffled.

“What?” Luda asked.

“I said,” Agitha took in a heavy breath, “My mother is the Great Fairy of Hyrule, and I think I’m starting to turn into something like her.”

She twisted her elbows over her head to reach the back of her dress with fumbling fingers, and Luda just stared, uncomprehending.

“I think my mom was supposed to help me with this,” Agitha was explaining, grunting with the effort of her contortions. “But I couldn’t find her in time. I couldn’t find her anywhere.”

Luda still hadn’t blinked since the initial reveal. She still wasn’t fathoming the first bit of this story, never mind what her friend was trying to do now. “Your—fairy mom? In time for what?”

Agitha yanked the buttons of her dress with enough frantic force to pop a few of them off entirely, letting the fabric split over her spine. Luda’s mouth opened, but before she could speak, she saw it: the blister, the swollen hunch over her friend’s shoulder blades. She slid across the couch until she was behind Agitha, hands hovering over the exposed area.

“Does it—hurt?” she asked in alarm.

Agitha’s chin quivered as she nodded. “I think...I think my wings are coming in.”

Standing, Luda found her moccasins where they’d fallen and pulled them on. She wrung her hands for a moment. “Stay—stay right there,” she said, still thinking. She raced across the small room and yanked the comforter off her bed, sending laundry splattering across the walls and floor in her haste. She tucked the blanket around her still-damp friend. “I’ll be right back,” she promised.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Agitha whispered hoarsely, her eyes huge.  



	2. Bitter Medicine

Luda took the stairs down three at a time, flying around the corner into the darkened lecture room. One of the tall medicine cabinets was open, a variety of dried herbs displayed hanging. Luda took just enough to not be missed. Not much was needed, anyway, for her purposes. She’d have to make a very different type of tea for Agitha.

She recovered her own bag of instruments as well, something she had never bothered to take out of the classroom before. Inside was a mortar and pestle, among other things, and—though goddesses forbid it should go so far—a set of scalpels.

When she came back into the dorm, locking the door behind her, Agitha looked pale and afraid. Luda rolled her sleeves back. There was still water left in the kettle, and she set it back to boiling.

“Pull the back of your top down as far as you’re comfortable, all right?” Luda ordered, already pressing the herbs together in the mortar. An affirmative squeak answered her, and she went on making her concoction, which just smelled worse as it came into fruition, which was, unfortunately, a good sign.

Agitha gave another whimper and Luda went over to her. The pale red, soft skin of her back was taut, pulled over something unseen that shifted under the surface with each shudder. Even the gentlest touch made the poor girl flinch, so Luda pulled her hands away.

“Well, you seem pretty accurate in your own assessment.” Luda pursed her lips. The shapes were definitely some type of limb, but what exactly couldn’t be described by any traditional medical science. This was something mystical. “I can do something for the pain, but I want you to stay here with me. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

Agitha nodded, clutching the blanket to her collarbone. “What happens when they come out?”

“We’ll see. If it’s fairy magic, it might not be as bad as you’re imagining.” In the kitchen, Luda found all that remained of a mostly-crystalized honey jar and spooned it into her makeshift medicine. “Here,” she said, handing the mug over. “It’s not gonna taste good, but it’ll help you.”

Agitha’s face screwed up at the first sip but she made a solid attempt to pretend it was just fine, her big eyelashes fluttering and her eyebrows raising until she finally gave up and just went “Eugh.”

Luda giggled. “Yeah, sorry.”

“It’s quite all right. I’m just very happy to know such a professional.”

“Hardly. You’re my first patient.”

Agitha blinked at her curiously. “Really? You just seem so practiced.”

Brushing her sleeves back down along her wrists, Luda shrugged her response. “I'm just a student. But I’ve always been pretty cool-headed in emergencies.” She mused briefly on the time Death Mountain had almost erupted, or when Kakariko had been overtaken by unearthly monsters, or the first time her mother had collapsed…. “It used to make everyone think I was strange. But it’s just how I am.”

“You’re very strong. I’m a crying mess in a pinch.” Agitha winced and rubbed one shoulder. “Speaking of pinching.”

“How long has that been going on?” Luda asked, once again sitting next to her.

Agitha chugged the rest of the small cup of medicine and stuck her tongue out as she dropped the empty cup on the table. “Bleh. Some time, I suppose. I mean…” She sank against the couch arm. “I mean, I think I always knew something was going to happen, but...it never hurt before. I thought I would find my mom before then.”

“Did it start two years ago? Is that why you had to leave?”

“Sort of. I didn’t feel anything bad, but I knew...something was different. Like my senses were getting sharper, sharp enough to see things other people couldn’t. And I couldn’t ask anyone in town about it, because you know how they...they bottle fairies.”

“Oh, Aggie.” Luda gripped the cushion with both hands. On the one hand, it seemed so silly. On the other, Luda had never even considered that a Hylian with fairy blood might be valuable to all the wrong people. “Did you know all this time?”

Agitha nodded. “I’ve always been able to talk to my bugs and to the fairies. They tell me about my mom. They told me I was one of them, but not one of them—half and half.”

Luda swore softly. Agitha’s eyes widened but she said nothing. Renado would be horrified with his daughter’s language, but the situation called for it. “I’m not...I don’t want to blame you for not telling me, but...oh, Aggie, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had to tell you in person or you would have thought I was playing a game with you. And you never got to visit, and then when you did move to Hyrule, I needed answers more than I needed…” Agitha sighed. “It was dumb and terrible of me.”

“No, no, I understand…. _Now_ I understand.”

The two girls sat quietly on the crooked couch. Agitha played with the blanket fringe, her breathing evening out as the pain in her back faded slowly. “Did your dad make this?” she asked.

Luda glanced at it and nodded. “Yeah, that’s one I’ve had since I was little.”

“And you took it with you?” Agitha gave her a little smile. “Cute.”

Luda didn’t smile back. “I do not have much else from home here.” She stood up again, driven by a need to feel busy. The apartment was a wreck and every second Agitha was in it made her more and more self-conscious of the tiny, dingey, messy environment. She stooped to gather up her fallen clothing. “Um, I'm sorry, I didn’t notice how dirty it was in here. I guess you’re not used to places like this.”

“Oh, it’s fine. As long as it’s out of the rain, we could be in Hyrule’s sewers and I’d still be happy to see you.”

Luda gave a forced laugh. “H-hopefully it smells better than that in here.”

Agitha was sinking onto her side on the couch, cheek pillowed by the folded edge of the blanket, her eyelids drooping. “Mmhm.”

“Do you want my bed?”

“No...I’m fine here. I feel a lot better.”

“That’s good. Yeah, I forgot to mention, the medicine will make you sleepy, too.”

“So I am...noticing,” Agitha yawned.

“Maybe I could help you find your mother tomorrow,” Luda suggested, folding her clothes together into a pile on the floor.

Agitha gave the tiniest shake of her head. “I couldn’t find my mom in two years. I don’t think we can do it in just a day...”

“Well, then, maybe we don’t need her at all. I can take care of you.”

Agitha gave a soft snore.

Luda’s lips pursed again, this time into a smile. “Sleep well,” she whispered.

The fire burned down and Luda got into her own bed, glancing over at the couch every now and then to convince herself she wasn’t living some kind of dream. Her penpal was here. Her friend was back. They had so much to catch up on, as soon as Agitha was feeling better.

Since her blanket was in use, Luda pulled a coat over herself and fell asleep.

*

The lancing pain faded to a dull ache, and when Agitha stirred awake with the first lights of dawn, she could no longer feel even that. The room was warm and still dark, with neither Hyrule’s sun nor wind able to find a direct path inside through the single open window. Agitha found that a small pillow had been placed near her resting head and took it, rolling over to bury her face in the back of the couch, which smelled faintly of incense merely from being in Luda’s presence for so long. This was how her letters had always smelled, too. It was too faint to be nostalgic, but it was strange how much of the girl Agitha had already been able to recognize from her letters, even though her physical appearance had so drastically changed with her age.

Luda had always been so curious about her, so quiet and careful with each word. Now she was much older and speech came much more confidently. She’d gone from a twelve-year-old with straight, shoulder-length black hair, stocky and shy in her bearing, to a young woman with a thin frame and buzzed head. Her eyes were the same, though, a deep and beautiful brown; her father’s eyes.

How odd for her to be so real again after all this time.

Agitha could hear her breathing across the room. The insect princess had never slept in the same room with anyone but her small, many-legged subjects. It was unnerving in a way that excited her.

Somewhere in the market, a cucco crowed.

And crowed again. And a bell sounded, long and low, five, maybe six times, Agitha did not keep up to count, sleepy as she still was from the medicine.

Luda gasped awake. There was a thud as she fell out of her bed.

Agitha flopped onto her stomach, startled, raising her head over the couch arm to look. “Err you ‘right?” she slurred.

“Agh—I’m—I’m gonna be late for class—” Luda stuttered, wrestling with a change of clothes behind the bed frame.

“Hmm, skip?” Agitha suggested innocently. School had never been a priority for her.

Luda made a frustrated sound. “I can’t, it’s the internship program and I’m already behind and they’ll cut me out of it if I—I can’t. I’ll be back later.”

She staggered out from behind the bed, belting clean, somewhat-ironed pants on over a white dress shirt. Agitha sat up, staring. She looked so different in modern Hylian fashion compared to the comfortable ornamented trappings of Old Kakariko.

Luda noticed her alertness as she tied the collar into a lopsided bow. “You don’t have to get up. You should really rest.” She was already getting her shoes on, a weighty bag of books slung over one shoulder.

“Will you not have breakfast?” Agitha inquired, alarmed.

Luda grimaced. “I normally don’t, I’m sorry. I will bring something home for you as soon as I can.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about me, I just think you ought to eat something,” Agitha murmured, watching her, concern growing a wrinkle in her brow. “Maybe I could make you something quickly?”

“No time, got to go.” Luda pulled the door open. “I’ll see you soon.” She closed it.

The apartment was dark and still for ten seconds before the door broke open again and Luda rushed back in. “I forgot my—my bag,” she panted. She clattered her tools and medicines back into the dull carpetbag she’d retrieved last night and soon was gone again, carrying it along with the collection of books that was the size of a treasure chest.

Agitha looked around the room in her absence. The mess did horrify her, just a bit. It was no worse than her own Castle had become when she was younger, but Luda could not possibly have the free time to tend to all this, as a young Agitha had. A small cauldron with a fat, sticky coating lay abandoned next to a scrubbing brush in one corner. Clothes lay all around and on the bed, and trash from packages purchased in the market—not to mention papers, papers and more papers—scattered wherever the window, which she saw now was nothing but a broken pane with a curtain, had let the breeze take them.

Testing her back with a stretch, Agitha stood. The lump was uncomfortable but in no way debilitating this morning. The girl rolled up her sleeves, determined to be a good house guest. It was time to get to work.

*

One good reason Luda had stopped taking her own breakfasts in the morning: it kept her from hurling whenever a new carcass was brought out for the student to dissect. Gross anatomy, the finest of early morning subjects. She’d mainly gotten over her revulsion for the activity, but really, did it always have to be such bloated dead things that got passed around?

“Pay attention, Kakariko,” the teacher snapped at her.

Luda blinked blearily and glanced at the scalpel in her hand. She was fairly certain she hadn’t done anything wrong yet. Or anything at all.

“Do I have to do it for you?” her partner in this particular exercise whispered, the words dripping with disdain.

“No, I know how to cut open a liver,” Luda hissed back. For a minute she entertained the thought of it being _their_ liver, or at least that it belonged to the teacher who had started the trend of referring to her by hometown rather than by name.

Apparently, though, she didn’t, because while no one said anything to discourage her work as she did it, she was graded poorly on her work anyway at the end of the class.

“Can I ask what I did wrong?” she attempted.

The teacher just shot her a look. “Talk to me after the ending bell,” she advised.

“Um, I, I actually have...to go home early today,” Luda stammered, her thoughts flying to Agitha, alone in the room upstairs. Hopefully she wasn’t in pain again already, but there was no way the medicine would last much longer.

She felt every eye on her, the other students in open-mouthed disbelief at her rejection of the teacher’s offer. The teacher merely continued to pass out graded sheets, shrugging. “Fine, then. Don’t. Pursue whatever’s more important than this class. I’m sure it’ll be worth it.”

Luda’s eyes dropped to her desk. Shame burned her face. The students whispered and cackled amongst themselves.

“Well, if she won’t accept help, then she shouldn’t expect it.”

“Clueless.”

“It’s a boyfriend,” one of them said.

“No, it’s not. Haven’t you heard, Kakariko’s a—”

The teacher barked sharply to restore order as she returned to the front of the room. “Right, then, since you all have been very noisy about my tests being ‘unfair’ and—what was it, Dinni? ‘Too surprising’? I’m giving you all fair warning in advance this time.”

Luda wrote down the chapter names as the teacher put them on the chalkboard, but there just seemed to be more and more of them and she could already feel her planned week with Agitha falling apart under the weight of all the studying she was going to be doing. She had to read it all, and fast, if she wanted to help the fairy girl at all. Her head drooped.

“Kakariko!”

A ruler came down on her hand with stinging force, leaving a flat, red mark. Luda jolted in her seat, staring up at her angry teacher.

“Do not disrespect me by falling asleep in class again, Luda!” The teacher shouted. She levelled the ruler around the room. “That goes for all of you! I want discipline in this classroom!”

Snickers broke out again as soon as the teacher had walked away. Luda straightened in her chair this time. She was blinking back hot, angry tears, but at least she was sharply awake now.

For the rest of the school day she was holding herself together with very thin threads. Despite not eating (or rather because of it), she felt nauseous and weak and had trouble focusing on anything. Agitha was waiting for her. Everything else seemed unimportant.

She snuck more of the medicine into her bag when the other students were busy crowding out the door. Thankfully only one of the three teachers had asked her to come back after class so she snuck out unaccosted, despite knowing looks from the other students. She didn’t care about them. They didn’t know her. Very few of them had even bothered to learn her name, assuming she would drop out soon.

They’d almost been right. But now, she _had_ to learn, because she had someone to help.

Luda ran to the market first. It kept her away longer, but she had to get something for her sick friend, anything to prove she could do this. It was only when she was standing in front of the stalls that she remembered her wallet was not in her bag. She couldn't do even this. She didn’t even know if there _was_ anything left in her wallet after the rent payment for her dorm.

She was ready to cry when she reached her door. She didn’t know how to face Agitha on the other side. She could make more tea, more medicine, but she didn’t have anything else to offer.

Apologies were already on her lips as she opened the door, but her mouth hung open instead. For a second she stepped back, thinking she had opened the wrong door. But no. Her dorm was spotless, clothes folded and stashed under the bed, dishes clean and put away in the cupboards. More than that, there was a paper bag overflowing with produce on the table. The smell of broth and warm bread filtered into the hall.

Agitha was bent over the little fire alcove, tasting something in Luda’s little cauldron. She gave an “mm!” of surprise and waved the ladle at the door. She was wearing an apron that Luda had been gifted but never used, with white pleated frills sticking in every direction—it suited her.

“Welcome home!” she exclaimed.

And then Luda really did cry.


	3. Little Miss Fortune

“How did you do this?” Luda sniffled, comforting herself with slices of a warm loaf of bread that smelled and tasted like rosemary.

Agitha smiled at her across the table, her hands folded. She’d shed the apron, but Luda noticed she had borrowed a nightgown from among the laundry she’d put away, something soft, comfortable and just pretty enough to look like an actual dress on her without the constricting waist or necklines. It hung off her shoulders, leaving her bare to her collarbone except for a purple ribbon necklace adorned with the jeweled face of a mantis, and her long hair, which she had finally let out of the twin ponytails. It flowed in twin flaxen rivulets down either of her shoulders. “A magician never reveals her secrets!” she exclaimed, then added, “But this isn’t a secret, I just went to the market.”

“The market didn’t clean up after me! You did all this by yourself?” Luda’s eyes were flicking around the single room, admiring the changes.

Aggie nodded. “Whatever you’ve been giving me has really helped. I almost feel like a normal girl again.”

Luda was getting that feeling, too. Sitting down and eating dinner with someone was a luxury she hadn’t experienced often since she’d left Kakariko Village. Luda felt like a year-long hunger had been satisfied by the simple broth. “I feel foolish. You were just telling me how strong you think I am, and I’ve already ruined it by crying about soup.”

“You have a lot of other things on your mind,” Agitha said, staring at her half-downed cup of medicine and gathering up the nerve to finish it.

“I’ve had a terrible week. Is it that obvious?”

“It was, from your letters. I found them while I was cleaning up.”

Luda grimaced. “You mean the ones I didn’t finish?”

Aggie’s hand shot to her mouth suddenly. “Was that rude of me? I only read the ones with my name on them.”

“Well, I might have preferred if you asked, but…” Luda shook her head. “No, you know what, no. It’s my own fault for never sending them to you in the first place.”

The fairy girl deflated visibly. She drained the rest of the medicine and slouched down in her seat. “I feel awful about disappearing for so long. We could have had such fun, and my own quest was pointless anyway.”

“You were looking for your mother, right? If I’d known...I would have understood, even if you hadn’t told me the fairy part.”

Agitha sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I was in places even the postman wouldn’t come.”

Luda could see the medication already working on her, her eyelids sinking ever so slightly with each blink. She took Agitha’s cup and bowl from across the table, stacked them with her own dishes and stood up. “Well, why don’t you have a rest now, and then you can tell me more about it, if you want?”

Agitha’s head swiveled up at her. “I couldn’t possibly, I still have the dishes to do!”

“You already made dinner, let me take care of that. You’re my guest, and you’re in the midst of an ordeal, you shouldn’t be doing so much anyway!”

She rose from her chair, blinking sleepily. “But I must be a good guest.”

Luda chuckled, guiding her by the wrist towards the bed. “Oh, Aggie, you don’t have to be a good guest. You just have to be you.”

“Hmm.” Agitha didn’t protest any further, and she was soon curled up with Luda’s blanket again. The sun was setting, and Luda lit a lamp and set it by the bedside. 

Luda sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “Can I check your back again?”

Agitha nodded, shrugging the nightgown down over the swelling. Luda could now define an indent separating the area down the middle, over her spine, into two individual lumps under her mottled-red skin.

“Any pain?” Luda asked.

Agitha shook her head, eyes closed. “No. It just feels like something’s twisted. Like having a knot in your hair. It doesn’t hurt, but you know it’s there. Uncomfortable.”

“Good to know. I’m going to find out if there’s anything more I can do for it, all right?”

She hummed again as sleep overtook her. Luda gently tugged the nightgown back into place and then the blanket over that.

Luda took the dishes to the source of running water for her block, a small washhouse, cleaned them amongst a crowd of old women gossiping in the lantern lights, came home, and got out her textbooks. Agitha slept on for several hours. Luda turned page after page in silence, occasionally taking notes in the margins, and at first she didn't notice Agitha's breathing hitching. Then the breathing became a whimper. Luda stood up, alarmed, wondering if the medicine had failed. Agitha woke herself up with a startled “Ah!” and wriggled upright, looking around in confusion.

Luda stood a few feet from the bed, brow furrowed with concern. “Are you all right? Does it hurt?”

Agitha blinked at her surroundings. Her eyes dropped to the blanket. “Oh, dear, I’ve taken up your bed, haven’t I?”

“Yes, but—I’m happy to lend it, there’s no need to get up—” Luda assured, but the girl had already swung her legs onto the floor, wrapping the blanket around her like a shawl.

“I’d rather not sleep anymore right now anyway,” she said.

“Oh. Does it hurt?” Luda asked again.

“It did in the dream.” Agitha rubbed her shoulder absently. “But not anymore.”

Luda glanced at the little kitchen. The fire was barely more than cinders, but it could be stoked if need be. “Can I get you anything?”

“A distraction.” Agitha wandered to the window and pushed the curtain aside, her hands careful around the broken pane. The street below was silent, nothing but crickets and cats mewling. The day’s crowds had long retired.

Luda blurted it out without thinking. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

“A walk?” Agitha tilted her head, interested.

“Yes, you know, see the fountain square at night, maybe. Nobody awake. Maybe it will help you feel better.”

“That sounds…” Agitha closed her eyes and inhaled the fresh air from the window. “Marvelous. Let’s do it.” She went to the meager pile of her belongings in the corner of the room to retrieve her shoes while Luda found her long fringed vest, another gift from her father, and slipped it on to protect against the damp chill in the spring night air. She held the door open for both of them.

“We match,” she said, pointing at the blanket-turned shawl Agitha was still holding around her shoulders. The girls tiptoed down to the street, giggling.

“Oh, I know. Have you ever been to the viewing deck?” Agitha asked, suddenly excited.

Luda shrugged. “I haven’t really found the time.”

“Then that’s where we shall go!”

“Wait, isn’t it locked up at night?”

Aggie pulled her along, holding the blanket clasped at her throat with her other hand. “Oh, no one ever checks that door. Come on!”

The market square was deserted, fountain burbling and glimmering in the moonlight. A few guards passed on patrol, giving polite nods to the young women, who strolled sedately by. Agitha waited until they were gone to rush the little door , jerking Luda after her. It opened easily.

“Lucky,” Luda whistled.

Agitha led her up a set of stairs in almost pitch dark. The next thing Luda saw was well worth the temporary blindness. Hyrule Castle, dazzling in its new moon-white stone. Windows of colored glass had been installed, goddesses and symbols and eyes patterned into them to watch over the town, each sparkling like jewels at the bottom of a night-dark sea. The sight of it was broken up only by bits of scaffolding where the construction was still unfinished on the needling spires. A castle took a long time to raise from the ground.

“It looks so different from when I left!” Agitha exclaimed, delighted. “They’ve done so much work!”

“Yeah,” Luda agreed. “It’s beautiful.”

Agitha leaned over the rail on both elbows until Luda expressed concern that she might fall off, at which point the insect princess laughed at her, and then sank down to the stone balcony, wrapping the blanket around herself. Luda sat down, too, smiling.

“How have you never come up here? It’s the best spot in the whole town, and you can’t tell me you were in school every single day since you moved here,” Agitha asked. “I don’t know much about school but I’m fairly certain it doesn’t work that way.”

“No, but I do work for the doctors there, too, I am an intern, after all. But it only pays for the tuition, so I grab another job over the holidays, too. It’s not so bad with the doctors, at least, they give me enough time to do my homework. I don’t think they really need me that much, I mostly just keep the environment clean, stuff like that. Or maybe they just don’t want me around.”

“I don’t see how anyone could not want you,” Agitha assured.

Luda dropped her head. “Oh, I, er, thank you.”

“What about the classes?”

“They’re fine. I certainly learn a lot. Maybe too much…too much to process, not enough time to really let it sink in. That’s why I do a lot of reading after.”

“Do your classmates help you study?”

“Er, no. Not in the slightest. I don’t really have any friends in the class, more like…there’s a handful of decent people who  _ don’t  _ go out of their way to mess up my day.”

“Oh.” Agitha’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, it’s...it’s fine.” Luda winced, grasping for a new topic. “So, what happened to your old house here? Did you sell it?”

“No,” she answered idly, staring off at Hyrule Castle. “I expect it’s still empty, except, of course, for my golden courtesans.”

“Oh, the bugs! They’ve probably taken the place over. I’d love to see that.”

“Perhaps.” She gave a slight nod and sighed. “Sometime soon. I’m not ready to go back yet. After all, I abandoned them.”

“I’m sure they’re fine. Bugs are hardy.”

“But they won’t know me anymore. I’ll have to introduce myself as royalty all over again.”

Luda grinned at her. “Anyone, even an insect, could tell you’re someone special.”

Aggie turned to her. She wasn’t matching her grin, no, her smile was soft and genuine, her piercing violet eyes meeting Luda’s in the dark.

Luda cleared her throat. “Are you ready to go back to my apartment yet?”

“Yes, I do believe I’ve drunk in enough of this view.” Agitha gathered the blanket again, stroking it like it was made of the finest furs in Hyrule. She got to her feet primly and gave a mock curtsy with the hem of the nightgown.

Luda offered her arm. “Shall we, milady?”

Agitha snorted and broke into a laugh that was so hideous and joyful at once that it became infectious. Soon they were marching arm-in-arm back through the square.

“Princess Agitha?”

The giggles died on their lips. Luda’s head jerked about, trying to identify the source of the low voice. It belonged to a young man, who stepped from the shadows as though born from them. He was hefty, tall, maybe in his twenties. He had long dark blond hair knotted behind his head, and a bulbous nose that dripped down his face. His expression was sour. Luda felt Agitha shrink away and stepped between them instinctively, despite the man still being several feet away.

He took a step closer. “So it’s true. You really are back.”

Luda stiffened, one foot shifting towards him into a fighting stance, but Agitha pulled on her arm. She was trembling.

“Let’s just go,” she whispered.

Luda had no idea why she was frightened of the stranger, but she wasn’t going to ask her right now. She led the way, shooting a parting suspicious glare at the man.

“Wait!” He lunged after them, but his foot turned on the cobblestones and he crashed to the ground, cursing. The girls sped their walk into a jog. He yelled after them. “You! Hey, you! You know she’s cursed, right?”

Luda paused, long enough to shoot Agitha a  _ does-he-know? _ look, but the princess was staring at the street beneath her feet, mouth parted, chest heaving like her breath would not come.

“Don’t hang around her long,” the young man called after them, on his knees, trying to brace himself to stand against the base of the fountain. “She’s bad luck. She hurts people.”

“Come on, Aggie, I’ve got you,” Luda said, ignoring the voice as she touched her friend’s shoulders, steering her forward. Agitha moved shakily and Luda pulled her into a sidestreet, glancing behind. “He’s not following us. The guards must have heard him yelling and they’re helping tow him off. He must have hurt his foot.”

Agitha still looked distressed. “I know. He can’t follow me. He wouldn’t...wouldn’t be allowed to.”

“Allowed? By whom?”

Aggie shook her head and broke back into stride. “I just want to go back. I’ll sleep on the couch, I promise, I just…”

“No, don’t do that, you can have my bed.”

“I don’t want to be more of a burden than I already am.”

“You’ve been a blessing, Aggie, not a burden. It’s really no trouble. Besides, my books are all over the couch, I still have to finish reading. We’ll swap, just this once.”

She was too tired to argue further. Once the door was open, Agitha went right to the bed and crawled in, slumping in a very un-princesslike manner.

The apartment was still quiet, and clean, and beautiful. It felt like it had been renewed, somehow. Between her schooling and grabbing jobs in the summer to help cover her costs of living, Luda had not felt the pressures of daily tasks completely lifted from her mind since the moment she’d arrived in Castle Town. No matter how much she’d done, it had never been enough for one person alone.

Fetching the lamp to relight it, Luda paused at the bedside of the sleeping princess, who lay on her stomach. Her long blond hair blanketed her shoulders and hid the side of her face until Luda brushed it, gently, behind one pointed ear. Agitha did not stir but for a flicking of her closed eyes. She had no idea what kind of gift she’d given her old penpal.

“Aggie, I think you’re good luck after all,” Luda whispered.

There was no response but the feather-soft intake of a new breath as Agitha slept peacefully on.

She set the lamp on the little table and settled on the couch to finish her homework.


	4. Unspoken

The next morning, Luda was able to find clean clothes, have two slices of rosemary bread for breakfast and pack an apple for a lunch, and get her school things together without disturbing the still-sleeping Agitha. She left another dose of medicine with a note that said “just in case” on the table, and clean clothes out next to the small pile that consisted of Agitha’s few belongings—her wallet, a satchel, her parasol—and made her way on to school without panic. And after the day had gone by, she was once again greeted at home.

It quickly became a routine. Aggie slept or went where she pleased during school hours, but by the fifth bell she was always there, eager to welcome Luda back to the apartment. She wore a cloak and held her parasol close to keep prying eyes from noticing anything out of the ordinary about her back, and, on free days, she and Luda went out like this together to see Castle Town.

The young man who had accosted them did not reappear, but he was far from the only person to recognize Agitha. In all corners of the town, they could hardly go two steps without someone calling a greeting for the princess of bugs. Old acquaintances would ask her where she’d been all this time, and she’d respond with her old sparkling charm.

“Oh, Princess Agitha has been on a pilgrimage,” she’d announce, curtsying apologetically to her fans. “A very special journey to unite the Insect Kingdom.”

They would feign appropriate bedazzlement at this momentous revelation and Agitha would walk on with a smile and a wave. Even though she hadn’t returned to her castle, the game of playing princess went on, and it had evolved from a child’s play-acting to a narrative of dense political webs (sometimes literally, as tensions were apparently high between her humble kingdom and the fictional Land of Spiders).

“Who do you have with you?” many would ask eagerly. Luda became quickly self-conscious. So many eyes had never been on her before.

Agitha squeezed her close, shoulder to shoulder. “This is an honored correspondent of my kingdom! She has been a precious ally as Agitha has been on her special quest, yes she has.”

“What was the quest? Trying to find the Insect King, were you?” one person called after.

For a fraction of a second, Agitha’s mouth made a soundless “oh,” then her smile popped back into place. “No! The quest is a secret,” she said cheekily, and parted the crowd with a few determined steps, taking Luda’s hand.

The crowd went back to its regular milling. Luda smiled in a way that was half grimace. “This is exhausting. How do you do it? It seems like everyone here knows you.”

Both the attention and the medication were making Agitha tired quickly. She wrapped her arm around Luda’s and leaned her head against her shoulder. “Nobody knows me,” she said quietly, and then, “Let’s stay away from the main streets.”

 _I know you,_ Luda thought, but did not say. “Do you want to avoid people?”

“Yes.”

Luda’s dark eyes searched her friend’s face. “Are you afraid to run into him again?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug.

Taking the lead, Luda pushed through the market street. There were many more people here, but too many to even pay attention to the two young women forcing their way through. Luckily, Aggie seemed to know where she was being led. They both nodded to the guards at the wallgate as they passed out over a short drawbridge and into the gardens.

This was where they had met. As soon as the gate closed behind them the voices of merchants and shoppers faded into a murmur, replaced by the hiss of a breeze through the trees, birdsong, the hum of a grasshopper in flight. Agitha took a deep breath, releasing Luda’s hand. She drew in her parasol and sat by the fountain, the image of tranquility if not for the way one arm was drawn up to her collar, as though she was about to reach for the uncomfortable spot on her back but was thinking better of it.

Sitting by her, Luda watched her carefully. “Will you tell me who he is?”

Agitha played with the parasol across her lap, twisting her fingers in the lace. “His name is Kert. He used to stand outside my house and look into the windows.”

“He did what?” Luda shot to attention, but Agitha flapped a hand.

“He was just a child, like me. I think he had a crush.”

Luda’s nails bit into her palms. “That doesn’t excuse…”

“He couldn’t have hurt me. Even if he wanted to, or tried, he…. Well, I suppose one day he did, he did try.”

Luda swallowed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Oh! Nothing bad happened to me,” Agitha's sad eyes finally found Luda's face as she assured her, but her expression grew no less unhappy. “I don’t think Kert really even meant harm. He knew I was leaving and he wanted me to stay, that’s all. But since...since I didn’t want to stay….” She looked away again. The parasol creaked with the strength of her grip.

“Aggie, you’re trembling,” Luda said softly, touching her arm.

“He was right. About the curse. I should have told you before, I’m just so ashamed.” Agitha stared at the folded parasol, the crumpled lace. “It’s not something I can control. It’s why I lived all alone in Castle Town, yet no one ever robbed me or hurt me. If they tried, they wouldn’t...they wouldn’t be able to. Bad things would happen.”

Dots began to connect in her head. The man's sudden inability to follow after them, despite his apparent anger. This melancholy as a kind of guilt. Luda did not let go, her hand gently cupping Agitha's forearm. “Did something bad happen to Kert?”

She nodded. “Just as he was begging me not to leave, he grabbed my wrist, and I couldn’t get away until, just, out of nowhere, a sign fell on him. It broke off one of the old shop doorways and landed on his head.” She glanced at Luda’s face and hurried to add, “It doesn’t sound bad, but it hit him so hard, his eyes rolled back and he fell onto the street. It was terrifying. If he hadn’t been groaning I’d have thought he was dead for certain. Several people saw what had happened, but nobody could explain it.”

A cloud stepped in front of the sun, dousing the gardens in cold shadow. The stone was still warm, soaking in light as it had been, but the air grew so chilled that Agitha hugged her cloak about her, shrugging away from Luda's touch. Eventually she stood.

Luda finally spoke. “It could just be a coincidence, you know, it doesn’t have to be a curse.”

Agitha shook her head emphatically, helping her up, too. “No, this has been happening since I was very little. People tried to take my jewelry and somehow cut their hands on it. People threw rocks at my windows only to have the rock bounce back at them. One time a man tried to touch my hair and withdrew like he’d burned his hand.”

Luda chewed her lip thoughtfully. She wasn't sure, yet, whether she bought into it, but she would not outright dismiss her friend's feelings, either. “To me...it sounds like all of them were getting what they deserved. You were just a little kid, and no one should have been trying to take advantage of you.” They started the walk back, moving through the crowds, their conversation stalling in patches as they moved around passersby.

“No! No! That’s not the problem…. If it was just a way to defend myself, I wouldn’t mind. But I’m not the one doing it, and not everyone it affects is trying to _hurt_ me. Luda," Agitha said, stopping to look her in the eyes, lowering her voice. "I'm afraid the curse will affect you too. Even if...if you're trying to help me, if my wings came in and I was in pain, I don't know what would happen…"

Luda gave her a half-grin, pushing onward. "Then I'll just be extra good to you."

Agitha frowned and started to speak again, but as they came back to the apartment block, they were stopped one more time.

“It’s the Insect Princess!” someone shouted. “You _are_ back!”

A small flock of people surrounded them and the usual back-and-forth followed, but Luda was alarmed to realize that several of the faces were ones she knew, from her own class. Their eyes passed over her, drawn to the magnetic beauty of Agitha in all her glory, tall and lacy and colorful, and barely saw short and plain and drab Luda there at all, never mind recognized her.

“Can we visit you at the Castle?”

“No, dear, at the moment the Castle is not a place for visiting.”

“Wait, then, are you living there still?”

“Are you staying in our building?” one asked, but Agitha just pushed past her like a breeze weaving between reeds. Luda met eyes with that one and finally found recognition there. The student’s mouth popped open just before Luda closed the building’s front door behind her. She had to stop to laugh.

“That was gratifying. It just seems like a hard game to keep up,” she said.

As usual, Agitha’s smile had disappeared the moment the crowd was no longer watching. “When you start out lying to protect yourself, eventually you can’t figure out where the truth ends anymore.”

“I’m not saying you have to stop.”

“I wish I could. You don’t know what it’s like. You haven’t had to live with secrets like this.”

“I have secrets, too,” Luda said, a bit sharply. “Just because they’re not magical…” She stopped herself. It was a half-truth she could not explore.

Agitha looked away, her mouth folding shut. “Of course. I’m sorry.” They walked on.

Luda could not think of anything that hadn’t been relayed before in their chain of letters. Her mother’s sudden illness and death, her struggle to make friends that had followed her from childhood, the Ordonian children that had inspired her to explore beyond the world of her village with their easy kindness and unity, and who remained distant friends to her to this day. All these things had been written about as their correspondence became more and more important. But something else lay under the surface.

Luda had always thought of the Agitha she had met and the one as the receiver of her letters just slightly different. After Agitha had announced her egression from Hyrule just when they might have been able to visit each other at last, it had gotten harder and harder to think of her as a flesh-and-blood person. They had both changed as they’d grown into adults, apart. This secret felt like something reserved for the Agitha at the tea party, those many years ago, and it was something Luda could not give a name to. Or maybe the Agitha in the letters had never come back to her after all, and this one, sitting quiet and hunch-shouldered in her apartment, was what Agitha looked like when the tea party ended.

The air was stiff and hideously quiet until the Princess perked up again, tipping her head with an “Oh!” and dashing to the window. Luda watched her, perplexed, as she held a small-voiced conversation with the air outside the broken window, then let one hand breach the pane, sticking her arm out into open space.

“Luda, come here,” she said excitedly, her gloom banished.

And Luda came, curiosity piqued.

In the light of day she didn’t even see it at first, but Aggie kept saying “Look, look!” until Luda found, along the length of her pale arm and alighted on her wrist, a white fairy resting, its wings fluttering absently every few seconds as if to keep its balance. Luda let out a small gasp in spite of herself. She’d lived near a spirit spring in Kakariko and had seen many fairies before, but not since the move. She’d thought no fairy would visit this city at all until Agitha came to her.

“Can I let her in?” Aggie asked.

Luda nodded, “Of course!” and they both pulled away from the window.

The fairy babbled in a voice like fine porcelain clinking, like glass beads rolling together on a necklace. Agitha nodded at it. “I agree, it is homey in here.”

“Can you...understand them?” Luda asked, a bit dumbly.

“Oh, yes, of course. She’s like a part of my family. Did you want to ask her something?” She stood patiently, the fairy drawn close to her face like an ordinary pet bird.

 _Yes. What is this? What is inside me?_ Luda could think of no question that the fairy would be able to answer. She shook her head. “She can stay here too, if she wants,” she said, though the dorm was beginning to look crowded. Who would ever desire to live here, and yet? It had become desirable. She rolled up her sleeves. “I’ll make dinner tonight.”

The pigtails swung as Agitha looked to her. The words that came were careful. “Thank you.”

Luda worked in the kitchen corner while Agitha sat with the fairy, listening to its small, chiming voice, her face aglow. Sometimes she laughed, like the fairy laughed, the sound of a clear golden bell.

This was a private Agitha that Luda had not met before, except, perhaps, in those letters. The pretense, the play-pretend game was all gone. She was with her family, what little family she could find, and she was unashamedly herself with them. For a moment, Luda ached to be a part of it.

And then, she was. Aggie glanced up at her and smiled.

The secret welled up and flowed over.

 _Oh_ , Luda thought, but did not say. _I love her_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your patience with this one! Also special thanks to my beta, BasilOuija, you've helped so much in getting this out there and keeping me motivated.


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